Roading mobility and built environments

Abstract

Each year, a great number of seasonal agricultural workers arrive at the city of Pomán located in Catamarca province, Argentina, to take part in the olive harvest for a period of four months. This activity, that has been promoted by the Industrial Promotion law 22,021 and its amendments, gives rise to a social and productive transformation of the local surroundings during the harvest season. According to some estimations, this represents a population growth of about 30% between February and May. This paper discusses what problems the city faces due to the arrival of this itinerant workforce and what kind of environments are built from the relationship between migrants and locals. To answer these questions, the analysis is focused on the migrant residence and the inhabitance of the space; the provision of public services such as health and education; the development of a particular economy; and the building of sociability as a legitimizing source of this type of mobility. The study is based on qualitative in-depth interviews performed with different local actors and workers during the migration season. Among the main results, we can mention the absence of public policies to sustain mobility processes, the development of a migrant economy at the local level, and the establishment of symbolic events that encourages this itinerant work.